That's a good thing. It is good to feel others pain. When you're at a distance--like the guys on the mountains--you can see better (When there are no clouds!) but you can't feel as well. Right? That's what we mean when we say we are at a remove from something. Earlier today, I was doing a little personal research and I ran across this image:
General Lee had a comprehensive view (no clouds) of the battlefield at Fredericksburg through his field glasses. I had never seen an image of this moment before but I know of the moment. Lee turned to Stonewall Jackson, I presume the bearded figure behind and to Lee's left, and said "It is well that war is so awful, we should grow too fond of it." It's a famous statement. I think it is interpreted as Lee paying tribute to the valor of the United States soldiers. I always interpreted it as one of the coldest, most unfeeling statements I ever read for down on that battlefield thousands of U.S. soldiers were being slaughtered in wave after wave of futile, senseless charges against a stone wall (not the Stonewall) and among those being slaughtered was one of my relatives. I personalized Fredericksburg.
It is a good thing to feel others pain. I think that the president and the attorney general were right to personalize the Trayvon Martin case this week.* As we let our "better angels" speak to us more, as we move toward "a more perfect union" we Americans wish to be a more "color-blind" society. We wish for beclouded vision. But we are a "colorful" society. You can feel without seeing only when? What is the one circumstance when you can feel without seeing: when the pain is inflicted upon you personally, right? The president and the attorney general were not color-blind this week, they did not wish for a color-blind America this week. They wanted white Americans to see so we could feel the pain of black Americans. For the first time in a long time I saw President Obama and General Holder as black men this week, and felt more than I had before their pain and the pain of black people with this case. It was reminder, to me at least, that they are not "just" the president and the attorney general, that they are Barack Obama and Eric Holder, with their own histories and personal experiences and joys and pains. And race. I think that that is good too. A color-blind society cannot feel as much as a color-beclouded society can.
*I do not feel it was right for the president to personalize it, as he did, before the trial because that could have affected the jury. The jury needed to be at a remove from presidential influence.
It is a good thing to feel others pain. I think that the president and the attorney general were right to personalize the Trayvon Martin case this week.* As we let our "better angels" speak to us more, as we move toward "a more perfect union" we Americans wish to be a more "color-blind" society. We wish for beclouded vision. But we are a "colorful" society. You can feel without seeing only when? What is the one circumstance when you can feel without seeing: when the pain is inflicted upon you personally, right? The president and the attorney general were not color-blind this week, they did not wish for a color-blind America this week. They wanted white Americans to see so we could feel the pain of black Americans. For the first time in a long time I saw President Obama and General Holder as black men this week, and felt more than I had before their pain and the pain of black people with this case. It was reminder, to me at least, that they are not "just" the president and the attorney general, that they are Barack Obama and Eric Holder, with their own histories and personal experiences and joys and pains. And race. I think that that is good too. A color-blind society cannot feel as much as a color-beclouded society can.
*I do not feel it was right for the president to personalize it, as he did, before the trial because that could have affected the jury. The jury needed to be at a remove from presidential influence.
